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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325936">thrill of the dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arghmuffin/pseuds/arghmuffin'>arghmuffin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Zutara February Flash Fics [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dreamsharing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Modern AU, Mostly fluff?, Zutara February Flash Fics, could be soulmatism?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:40:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arghmuffin/pseuds/arghmuffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, when it’s all over, they’ll remember how the sand felt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Zutara February Flash Fics [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148075</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Zutara February Flash Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>thrill of the dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Day 4: In Your Dreams, dreamsharing modern AU.</p><p>Hello! So I’ve basically accepted the fact that everything is going to be late from now on alkfjldksj. </p><p>As usual (AHAHA) I didn’t go through this very thoroughly, so some parts might sound a little iffy? Have a good read!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>/</p><p>The first time he sees her, she’s in a blue sundress, her eyes bright, purple nail polish chipped at the edges. She looks happy, maybe a year or two younger than him, her features startlingly different to his own. There’s something about her that doesn’t match the rest of his dream; too sharp, too out of place. </p><p>Waves lap at the soft sand beneath their feet, seagulls swooping above the horizon. Sunlight catches on the water, sparkling.</p><p>“Isn’t it beautiful here?” she asks, grinning, arms out and hands splayed toward the ocean.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” he responds, hesitantly. There’s no one here except for them, but the lack of people is surprisingly nice. He’s used to crowds on the beach, everyone tanning, swimming, laughing. Something about the silence is letting him breathe, just a little. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know where I am.”</p><p>She pauses before she speaks again. “I like it here. I wish I lived somewhere like this,” she says quietly, dragging her toe in the sand, not answering his question yet. “This is what I always dream about.”</p><p>Wind ruffles through his hair, blowing past his ankles relaxingly. It smells like the sea, and he smiles. “I like it here too.”</p><p>And it is a nice dream, him and Katara, patting down runny sandcastles and feeding the seagulls. He doesn’t know how he knows her name, or how she knows his, but he doesn’t think about it much, not when she’s there.</p><p>She likes the water the most. They spend hours swimming, drifting, splashing each other and giggling. She tells him the water is always cold where she lives, and her mother has to heat it up all the time. He tells her it’s hot where he lives, and the air shimmers in the summer, the way her dream’s clouds waver in the sky.</p><p>When the sun goes down and it gets colder, they visit the empty tourist shops on the boardwalk. The clothes are ridiculous, but fun to try on, so they traipse around in Hawaiian shirts and eat syrup-drenched shaved ice with no shame. </p><p>Later, the full moon rises, bathing them in faint light. When it’s all over, she swipes her sticky finger on his shirt, laughs, and makes him promise to visit her again.</p><p>He wakes up that morning, the vague shadow of a girl lingering in his mind, slowly fading out of his memory with each second that goes by.</p><p>/</p><p>The first thing he notices is that it’s cold, overwhelmingly cold. Wind bites his cheeks, thin and crisp, and the sky is black, covered in pinpricks of light. He doesn’t need to look around to determine where he needs to go. Somehow, he already knows.</p><p>The inside of the house is dark, lit up by only a few lanterns on the walls. She’s sitting on the floor, her back slumped, turned to the ground.</p><p>“Katara?” he asks. She looks up, and smiles faintly. She’s a bit taller, grown up a little, just a year like him. But her eyes look ages older and heavy, too tired for him to comprehend.</p><p>“Hi, Zuko.”</p><p>He frowns, taking in the empty room and the cold, frigid weather before sitting down next to her. “What happened to the beach and Hawaiian shirts?”</p><p>She shrugs. “I don’t have time for those things anymore. This looks kind of like where I live,” she tells him, gesturing at the room. </p><p>“It’s… cold,” he observes lamely, but she laughs a little anyway.</p><p>“C’mon,” she says, excitement back in her eyes, and it reminds Zuko of the exact way she looked when they met a year ago. “It’s really pretty outside.”</p><p>And in some ways, it’s just like the beach dream. They have snowball fights and penguin-sled down the icy slopes, laughing and hollering into the empty night. There’s frozen ice sculptures on the ground and a scattering of stars in the sky, and Zuko thinks that maybe, he could love this arctic landscape just as much as he loves the beach.</p><p>“I didn’t remember you last time,” he tells her, lying in a snow angel. “When I woke up, I mean.”</p><p>“I didn’t either.” She’s right next to him, her cheeks bright red from cold, smiling hard. “It’s okay. I’ll still see you here, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he exhales, his breath appearing as a white cloud in the air. “Yeah, of course.”</p><p>There’s something different this time, though. Their lives have both changed in ways too separate from this dream, too unforgivable for them to say out loud. These things weren’t made for the cold, for the small angels swiped, laughing, into the ground. So she doesn’t ever mention her mother or how her family is falling apart, and he doesn’t talk about his father’s anger, and his mother’s inability to stop it.</p><p>But they steal seal jerky and braid each other’s hair and whisper stories under the stars. And maybe the South Pole becomes a little bit more bearable for Katara, and maybe Zuko’s learning what it’s like not to be lonely. But they’re okay for now.</p><p>/</p><p>He can feel something is different from the way the ground shifts from under his feet, as if the earth is tilting on its axis slightly. </p><p>This must be his dream, the dark, city street, neon lights highlighting the sides of the road. People walk past him, some hurrying, some slowly, their face lit up by a screen. A crescent moon grins at him crookedly in the sky and he kneels down, touching the damp, rain-soaked concrete beneath him.</p><p>“Zuko, look what I found!” Of course, she appears, her face washed in bright blue, one of the neon lights in her hands.</p><p>She looks almost the same, almost. But she’s always a bit older the next time he sees her, and it’s not exactly sad, but more nostalgic, the way he blinks and she’s an inch taller. He’s a little taller, too. He always forgets that.</p><p>She turns the sign towards him, the bright blue startling against the dark backdrop. <em> Katara, </em> the wiring says in loopy cursive, and he flushes a little.</p><p>“Isn’t this such a cool sign? Your dreams are cool. We should visit them more often.”</p><p>“Uh— sure,” he responds, blinking at her enthusiasm. More people start to walk their way, so she takes his hand, making him blush again, and pulls him down the alleyway.</p><p>“Where do you want to go?” she asks him, releasing his hand. “This <em> is </em> your dream.”</p><p>He tilts his head to the sky, finding the moon glowing brightly at him. <em> Up, </em>he thinks, and turns toward her, grinning.</p><p>“Let’s go to the roof.”</p><p>They race up the staircase of a tower, flinging open the door to find a blank rooftop overlooking the city. It’s quiet up there, and pretty, surrounded by lights and traffic and people. But there’s nothing there to do, nothing to satisfy their youthful excitement and curiosity.</p><p>“Let’s have an adventure,” she says, so they steal a candy bar from the gas store, laugh the entire time they run from the cashier; they’re always looking for a thrill, the next adrenaline rush. In their dreams, it’s Zuko and Katara, just the two of them, and whatever they decide the world will be.</p><p>“You split, and I’ll pick which piece,” he tells her, leaning against the motel wall, rubbing his elbow. He knocked it into a pole when they were running earlier, hard, and it was still sore. </p><p>Katara delegates the pieces, stale caramel and chocolate melting in their mouths, almost exactly like real life. But better, he thinks, watching her fold the wrapper into a neat little square, the way she chucks it into the dumpster making him laugh.</p><p>When he wakes up, his head still cloudy with sleep, he stumbles into his mother’s room. His elbow is faintly aching, and he rubs it, wondering absently when he injured it. </p><p>“Mom?” he asks, voice cracking into the empty room, and just like the night before, no one responds.</p><p>/</p><p>“What on Earth have you been dreaming about?” she asks him, in the first time they see each other for two years.</p><p>He’s been dreaming about empty parking lots and broken stop signs and the smell of burning. And this is a dream as well, so he doesn’t need to tell her things like that, because her face softens anyway.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says. They’re on a ski gondola but it’s not moving, and they can’t see what’s underneath them, just a black abyss. Recently, it’s all been like this. He’s always just dreaming of things like this. </p><p>Her hand lifts up, hovers in the air. “Is it— is it okay if I can see it?” she whispers, the sound of her voice still echoing in the empty lift.</p><p>He hesitates so long that her hand falters, dropping back to her lap. She almost apologizes before his hand reaches up, gently peeling away the bandage, exposing her to the mottled skin underneath. </p><p>She doesn’t stare directly at the scar, just looks at him as a whole, which he appreciates more. Her hand is back to hovering over his face, but it never lands, just wavers indecisively.</p><p>“You can touch it,” he says, exhaling. “It doesn’t hurt, not here.” </p><p>“Okay,” she says, “Okay.” And it almost feels familiar, her hand on his scar, but they know better than that. </p><p>Out of nowhere, the ski lift starts moving and they jump back into their seats, Katara pretending she isn’t wiping her face, and Zuko hiding his embarrassment, his ears tinged red. </p><p>The gondola quickly comes to a stop, and they look at each other, faces bare and vulnerable in the dark. There’s nothing in his dream but a ski lift and the hole beneath them. What are they going to do? What is he supposed to do? </p><p>“Let’s have an adventure,” he says, just like last time, like always. And he grabs her hand and jumps into the dark, becoming nothing but two people falling, the only thing they know reckless abandon. </p><p>(He doesn’t think about how he will wake up in the morning, fragile and burned, or the way he will want to cry, his tears stinging the skin around one eye.)</p><p>Zuko holds Katara’s hand and smiles, wind whipping through his hair, a rush of warm air reminding him of the beach.</p><p>/</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>why did i choose a ski lift LMAOO</p><p>:) thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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